pairing: chung myung x reader
The wooden sword felt like absolute lead in your hands. Your chest heaved, sweat dripping off your chin to water the dusty dirt of the secluded training grounds.
"Keep your stance up! Your arms are dropping! Do you think an enemyâs blade is going to pause just because you're tired?!"
Chung Myungâs grating voice barked from a few feet away. Before you could even attempt to adjust your footing, a blur of motion snapped forward.
His wooden sword struck yours with enough force to send a jolt of pure electricity straight up your shoulders. Your knees finally gave out. You collapsed hard onto the cold ground, gasping for air, lungs burning like they were stuffed with cotton.
"Ah, look at you!" He stomped over, towering above you with his hands on his hips, exasperated as ever. "Collapsing already? Weâve barely been at it for two hours! up! Are you trying to die of embarrassment before a real sword even touches you?! If you don't get up right now, I'm making you climb the peak with boulders on your backâ"
"I had a weird dream last night!" you blurted out hastily. You were desperate to stop the incoming lecture before he actually forced you to haul rocks up the mountain.
Chung Myung paused mid-rant. His mouth hung half-open, eyebrows knitting together in sheer annoyance. "What?"
"A dream!" you repeated, sitting up slowly. You rubbed the back of your neck, laughing nervously to soften his glare. "It was super weird, okay? I dreamt we were somewhere totally different, surrounded by fire... and you looked completely exhausted. Like youâd been fighting forever."
You shook your head, waving a hand dismissively.
"And the crazy part? In the dream, I actually jumped in front of an attack for you. Isn't that hilarious? As if I could ever shield you. But... I don't know, when I woke up, my chest just felt really heavy. Like I was sad for a long time..."
He didn't call you stupid.
The loud, chaotic air around him evaporated instantly. His sharp pink-reddish eyes narrowed, and his grip on his wooden sword tightened so hard the wood gave a tiny, silent groan.
His brainâdeadlier and sharper than anyone ever gave him credit forâconnected the dots in a fraction of a second. It wasn't a dream. It was you. The fool from a hundred years ago who had thrown herself onto a blade meant for him, dying in his arms and leaving him with a blood-stained debt he never asked for.
She's starting to remember.
Before you could register the sudden, chilling silence, a shadow fell over you.
Chung Myung dropped to one knee right in front of you. Without a single word, his broad, calloused palm came down flat over your face, completely blocking your vision. It wasn't a soft touchâit was heavy, hot, smelling faintly of sweat and dry liquor, clamping down to lock your head in place.
"Stop talking nonsense," he said.
His voice wasn't his usual loud bark. It was low. Raspy. It carried a sudden, dangerous edge that made the hair on your arms stand straight up.
"A dream is just a dream," he grunted, his thumb pressing firmly against your temple. "It's stupid. Forget it."
You froze. Startled by the sudden darkness and the sheer, suffocating gravity in his tone, you opened your mouth to protest. But as his heavy hand stayed pressed over your eyes, your face suddenly flushed bright, searing red. Your breath caught, and your heart began to hammer frantically against your ribs.
Chung Myung felt the sudden heat bloom against his palm. He felt the tiny tremor in your breath, the rapid, frantic fluttering of your pulse beating against his fingers.
He blinked in the dark silence, staring down at you.
You weren't trying to push his hand away. You weren't yelling at him to get off. You were blushing furiously, your heart practically leaping out of your chest just because he was holding your face.
Even without those old memoriesâeven without knowing who he used to beâyou were already completely, stupidly in love with him all over again.
A slow, crooked grin pulled at the corner of Chung Myung's mouth. It wasn't a kind smile. It was sharp, dark, and utterly unhinged.
If you kept digging into those "dreams," youâd eventually remember the blood, the fire, and the tragedy. Youâd look at him with those same pitiful, self-sacrificing eyes, or worse, try to throw your life away for him a second time.
He wasn't going to watch you bleed out again.
And conveniently, youâd just handed him the exact leash he needed to keep you right where he wanted you.
He didn't gently lift his hand. Instead, he roughly dragged his palm down, grabbing your chin in a firm, unyielding grip and forcing you to look straight into his eyes.
His face was inches from yours. His eyes gleamed with a fierce, possessive intensity that made your head spin.
"Hey," he rasped, scowling slightly, though the dangerous glint in his eyes completely betrayed him. "Why are you sitting there sighing over stupid nightmares when I'm standing right in front of you?"
You swallowed hard, your face burning as you stared into his overwhelming gaze. The lingering sadness from your dream vanished, wiped out completely by his sheer presence.
"If you've got time to waste thinking about fake memories, you've got time to pay attention to me," Chung Myung grunted. His thumb roughly stroked your jawline before he finally let go, standing up and towering over you with a dark, satisfied smirk. "Don't bring up that garbage again. Got it?"
You nodded dumbly, completely flustered and breathless for a whole different reason now.
Chung Myung turned his back, resting his wooden sword over his shoulder as he looked down at you. A terrifyingly possessive glint lingered in his eyes.
If love was what kept your eyes locked on him and off the past, heâd use every single bit of it. He'd make sure you were far too busy dealing with him in this life to ever have a single second to remember the last one.
author's note: oh god this is my first fic! I had to use google and my friend help to translate it from my native language so Iâm sorry if there are errors ! Also let me point out that I am mahwa reader so if my boy sounds OCC sorry!
Anyway my brain is rotting over this concept. We need to talk about the fact that this man has so much PTSD he literally weaponized his own rizz. He has no idea what therapy is, so he chose manipulation instead! Bro really grabbed your face and said, "look at me, do not look at the trauma."
I love taking a direct detour from heavy angst by hitting it with a steel chair, purely because he will do anything to stop his people from dying again. Is it toxic? Absolutely, but i love it. It's peak Plum Blossom Demon behavior to invent "distraction by seduction" as a new martial art technique. He is so unhinged, your honor... he literally looked at a tragic cycle of reincarnation and said, "I can fix her by making her obsessed with me." Hope you like it!
